Cyberpunk 2077's redemption is complete, but the future remains murky for CD Projekt
Cyberpunk 2077's redemption is complete, but the future remains murky for CD Projekt
Despite a wide slate of games in development, it feels like the company's starting over from scratch.
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The game has such awesome visuals and detailing, and the story has so many great characters and moments, but the overall plot in the end fails to establish any kind of hope or stakes to get behind. The whole world is fucked, the protagonist is doomed, there are no good endings and everything is depressing. If only they could've dialled down on the nihilism and made the CP2077 universe a bit more fun, its story could have gone down as among the most iconic ones in the industry. Video games are meant to be an escape and nobody wants to be the loser at the end. It's a medium where bad endings just don't work.
The whole world is fucked, the protagonist is doomed, there are no good endings and everything is depressing.
I mean...it's cyberpunk. Both in genre and in the name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech",[1] featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.[2]
Maybe you can have good endings in cyberpunk, but it's not usually upbeat and cheery.
So is the Witcher but they still gave us a nice farewell. Besides, most of the endings in cyberpunk felt unnecessarily bad, railroaded into a negative outcome. I really thought we'd get a merged ending at least, they even teased it with the delamain story, but nah.
You're more than welcome to be disappointed with the ending and the depressingness of it all, but these don't exist in a vacuum.
The Witcher was based off a series of books. People expect books to not consistently end in a depressing way.
2077 is based off a tabletop game, with a very outspoken creator, Michael Pomdsmith.
Mike has been surprisingly active in the subreddits related to 2077, Edgerunners, and the original tabletop game. If you like the setting there's some really neat "word of god" stuff he's shared if you care to look it up. Anyway, the point is that he's been extremely clear that happy endings don't happen in Night City. The only way is out.
Hmm I get where you're coming from but if told well enough, I think "bad" or "sad" endings can absolutely work in video games. CP2077 is essentially a futuristic noir. The moral of the story is fame and infamy is bright but short and at the cost of ones life. And it's the connections you make with people that may outlast you. The story was what carried me through finishing it during it's initial launch. I think if they had more content and interactions in the city to make it more "alive", then it would've been even more, even after all the updates and dlc, imo.
As a Fan of the Too the moon series, Final Fantasy XV and Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core I confirm that sad endings can work very well.